Why Bagels Beat Doughnuts, Every Time

Bagel or doughnut — Which should you choose? There have been decades of controversy about which round doughy treat with a hole in the middle is best for you, and incredibly the doughnut industry has tried to posit that their product is actually a healthier choice. How could that be? Lets take a look at the two items. Both are round, both have a hole in the center both are grain based – but there the resemblance ends!

Doughnuts are light, airy, and fried to golden perfection in a vat of piping hot grease before being glazed with a sweet coating either of sugary glaze or chocolate frosting. There are also cake doughnuts in a variety of flavors, from plain to chocolate to blueberry to pumpkin, filled doughnuts stuffed with cream or jelly, and cinnamon rolls, twists, bear claws, or even apple fritters. Don’t forget the tempting doughnut holes!

New Yorker bagels, on the other hand, are more substantial – chewy rounds boiled in water then baked quickly to a crusty brown finish, topped with salt, onions, garlic, poppy or sesame seeds, and so on. Dried fruit such as cranberries or raisins can be stuffed into the dough and a wide range of flavors exists to match that of any doughnut shop.

The doughnut industry would have you look at the calorie count between the doughnut and the bagel and see that a doughnut is only approximately 2/3 the calorie count of its cousin. However, there are a few factors that aren’t taken into account, like:

People usually only eat one bagel, while two to three is the standard number of doughnuts eaten at a sitting.

Doughnuts may win the raw calorie count, but they also win the fat count, and it isn’t the best kind of fat!

Doughnuts are usually made from the simplest starches – white flour, sugar – while bagels can be whole grain.

New Yorker bagels win in other ways, too. You buy a doughnut, you have some selection, but then you eat it as is (with the notable exception of the store that sells hamburgers using doughnuts as the bun – hello, heart attack!) Toppings for bagels run the gamut, from a dollop of cream cheese or a sliver of smoked salmon to bacon and egg, peanut butter, pizza sauce and cheese, and the list goes on! Yes, it seems bagels certainly do win – every time, all the time!